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Teacher’s Pension Sought After Working How Many Days?!

Whenever a politician wants an excuse to raise taxes, he usually mentions that he is doing it “for the children.” But, now it appears “the children” have nothing to do with a teachers’ union lobbyist’s lawsuit to collect a teacher’s pension.

This sounds unbelievable, but the details make it even worse as watchdog.org reveals:

The Chicago Tribune reported Thursday that Piccioli is already collecting $31,000 annually from the Teacher Retirement System, but he could get an additional $36,000 annually if he wins his case. He’s also collecting a $30,000-pension from a different state retirement system for his time as a legislative aide in Springfield, according to the Tribune.

So, how did Piccioli position himself to get a teacher’s pension? Watchdog.org provides the details:

Piccioli is a retired lobbyist for the Illinois Federation of Teachers and never worked in a classroom, but he took advantage of a loophole in Illinois pension law to score his teaching pension.

In 2007, he worked one day as a substitute teacher at a Springfield school. Under Illinois pension law, that one day in the classroom allowed him to qualify for a pension that would pay him for all of his years of work as a member of the union.

This lawsuit and possible pension settlement will add to Illinois and Chicago’s public sector pension woes as watchdog.orgexplains:

The state’s pension funds are underfunded by more than $100 billion — not including Chicago’s pension funds, which are handled separately and are another $63 billion in debt — and are generally viewed as the worst state pension funds in the entire nation.